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Month: May 2004

An earlier post suggested that putting controls on internet in Pakistan is not the best idea. By a long shot.
Here is a post from an amazing blogger who has to deal with that very fact in Saudi Arabia. Those clamouring for more governmental oversight of the internet in Pakistan will do good by heeding such cautionary tales – because a. it kills freedom and b. it won’t work anyways.
I cannot say enough good things about The Religious Policeman.

None of that pesky freedom and democracy rhetoric from the Democratic Presidential Nominee. He made it clear to the WaPo yesterday that “sometimes we are dealt a set of cards that don’t allow us do everything we want to do at once”. And the cards dealt to the DPN are such that he has to be all pragmatist and realist while his opponent can float on vague notions of civilization.
So, what does he have to say about Pakistan?:

Kerry said Pakistan is a “critical relationship,” and he said he would not immediately pressure President Pervez Musharraf to loosen the reins of power.
“Is he a strongman to a degree? Did he promise elections that have not occurred and all the rest? Yeah,” Kerry said. “I don’t see that as the first thing that is going to happen in our priority of making America safer. It is a long-term goal. It is a goal that I will keep on the table. But it is not the first thing that has to happen.”
Instead, Kerry said, the first priority is keeping nuclear weapons from radical Islamists in Pakistan, with the secondary objective of crushing al Qaeda through better intelligence sharing with Pakistani security services.
Kerry evinced little concern about the possibility that Islamic parties could sweep elections in Middle Eastern nations if open elections were permitted. He said he would not try to thwart the results if it appeared Islamic parties might win.
“The last time I looked, except for Florida, an election is an election,” Kerry said.

As long as you do right by Americans, carry on. I have to say how insanely SHORT-SIGHTED and STUPID this foreign policy agenda is. US has to promote democracy in Pakistan. And by promoting, I mean: Fair trade, strong business ties, grants for education [administered by UN], cultural ties [no, not the O.C. on cable but massive libraries filled with Dead White Authors and PBS], and above all, a constant drumbeat of consistent, regular elections. Musharraf will co-operate, no doubt. He is most suited to liberalizing Pakistani society and rolling back Zia’s Islamization curse. But, at least KEEP THE PRETENSE OF DEMANDING FAIR ELECTIONS. Even the commonwealth had more balls than that. Dear Kerry, you are not to give free passes to dictators! sheesh.

Unidentified gumen shot and killed Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai today in Karachi. Riots have broken out all over town. They burned a KFC, a research library and countless shops. The general in charge of security is trying to protect the Shi’a neighborhoods. By most accounts, this looks like a payback for the Shi’a mosque bombing a few weeks ago.
Who was Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai? He was, probably, one of the biggest Sunni clerics in the country. The head-mullah of the Jamiat-ul Ulum-il Islamiyyah Banuri Town. Commonly known as Banuri Town, the seminary is the biggest Deobandi seminary in Pakistan. It was founded by Maulana Yusuf Banuri in the early 50s. It trains seminarians and theologians that take Deobandi message to all corners of the world. It also was the fountainhead for many jihadis in the Afghanistan conflict as well as Kashmir supplying money and training for the mujahideen.
In October 2001, Mufti Shamzai declared a fatwa pronouncing compulsory Jihad on all muslims against the U.S. He lend his support to many jihadi organizations, namely Harkat ul Mujhadeen, Jaish-i Muhammad, Harkat al Jihad-ul Islami, and the supra-org Harkat al Ansar. His student, Masood Azhar the founder of Jaish Muhammad, and Omar Sheikh collaborated on the Daniel Pearl murder.
Mufti Shamzai was unabashedly anti-Shi’a, anti-Musharraf, anti-US. Any one of those concerns could be behind his demise. Earlier this year, he responded thusly to Musharraf’s policies: “The anger is there and it is building and it will one day explode into a bloody revolution”. He peddled violence against the world that was not Deobandi. He advocated and used terror but hid behind the fake veneer available to the religious elite in Pakistan. It was inevitable that he would suffer what he prescribed so often.
Yet, in the end, it is the Pakistani people who will suffer the most. His killing is already being used as a call to arms to begin an Islamic Revolution in Pakistan. It is sure to unleash a horrific backlash against the Shi’a population in Karachi and elsewhere. Still, the government remains unable to prosecute these organizations in any sytematic form.
& if you thought that burning the KFC was a statement against globalization. don’t. ShamzaiJamiat-ul Ulum-il Islamiyyah Banuri Townhated KFC because the chicken was not halal.update: Daily Times has an editorial laying out the Shamzai past. also, as predicted, the first wave of retaliation against the Shi’a has beguncorrection: Some research over the weekend proves that Mufti Shamzai did NOT advocate any sectarian violence. I apologize for writing that. However, I do think he bears responsibility for what was peddled in his seminary and by his students.

We discovered Buffy: The Vampire Slayer late – in the seventh season. And thanks only to sven. Now, I admit, I am hooked. I love the humor, mainly. But, there are others to whom Buffyverse is a vast, uncharted space for interstatial observations.
There is Ken Kuykendall, a Mormon youth leader, who uses Buffy to teach Christ.
There is a literary theory thriller where Buffy stands in for pomo-bashing.
There is philosophy.
And, after all that is said and done: there is The Slayage Conference on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. An academic affair that attracted philosophers, theologians, physicists(?) and literary critics. Some papers that caught my attention:

I have been following this story for the past few days. Gen. Musharraf told GeoTV in an interview yesterday that “junior PAF and Army officers” were behind the assassination attempts in December. He further intimidated that the mastermind of the plot was a Pakistani al-Qaeda member who was still at-large.
There is little doubt that Musharraf’s policies have earned him a lot of enmity. The December attacks are the only ones revealed to the public. There is evidence that many more attempts have been made on his life. Who is behind these attempts? During the Afghanistan War a coalition of 5 hate-parties banded together to form Brigade 313 to fight Musharraf. The organizations are Jaish-i Mohammad, Lashkar-i Taiyba, Harkat-ul Mujahideen al-Almi, Lashkar-i Jhangavi and Harkat-i Jihad-i Islami [they chose 313 because it is the number of Muslim army arrayed against the 1000-strong Quraishis in the Battle of Badr (c. 624)]. While the individual organizations have been declared terrorist organizations and their offices etc. seized, it is unclear what, if any, action has been taken against Brigade 313. The leaders of the organizations, esp. Lashkar-i Taiyba and Harkat-i Jihad, have publicly called for Musharraf’s assassination and YET they are free to roam the streets.
Brigade 313 is bad news. Very bad news. Acting as a supra-organization [something that al-Qaeda has morphed into post-Afghanistan War], it is able to exist sans “offices” and “fronts”. Musharraf has cracked on opposition to his military rule [see Javaid Hashmi], but he is yet to strike hard against the jihadist organizations.
Looks pretty clear that it is Brigade 313 behind these “young officers”. Musharraf needs to take Brigade 313 out. Or he will fall. Because, you simply cannot protect against the type of suicidal attacks that are in vogue in these organization. And for all my dislike of dictators, Pakistan needs Musharraf around. So, Mr. President, act like a dictator and take them out ruthlessly. Jail the leaders, expedite them to US or UK for trials. Board up the mosques and madrasas that are associated with these organizations. Put your state owned PTV and media empire to denounce the hatred of these organizations. Find some clear headed, moderate ‘ulama and push them in the limelight. Declare a Jihad against jihadi Islam.
Yaum ul Furqaan means Day of Criterion (between right and wrong) which is the name given in the Qur’an to the Day of Battle of Badr. A day of judgement Pakistan faces now.update: Dawn reports that it is 30 year old Pakistani Amjad Farooqi, connected as well to the Daniel Pearl murder, behind these assassination attemps.

Main Entry: Kakatanied
Pronunciation: ‘ka’ka’ta need
Function: verb
Etymology: High English Critic, from New York Times, of Japanese origin; akin to recluse authors like Pynchon, prone to lashing out in fury on Great White Authors like Roth, Mailer.
1 a : to pulverize, to ridicule by a quaint twist of phrase, to shame out of existence [largely literary], to make white men shed the tweed and confront the scorn of a double minority who loathes their middle-browed, infantile, over-adjectivied writing, to refuse to kowtow before the earthen gods of the day set on their pedestal awaiting your offerings, to be snarky.
Example: Samuel Huntington’s Who Are We?. “A crotchety, overstuffed and highly polemical book”. “…what amounts to a 400-page PowerPoint presentation.”. “… also pockmarked with perplexing contradictions and curiously blindered observation.”intransitive senses
1 obsolete :I am Michiko Kakatuni.
2 in vogue:I love Michiko Kakatuni.

A discussion arose out of my earlier post where I bemoaned the lack of equality between the sexes in Pakistan & Bangladesh. I was asked to justify that p.o.v on “religious” grounds. On the issue of gender in Islam, others have done a masterful job: Fatima Mernissi’s The Veil and The Male Elite, Leila Ahmad’s Women and Gender in Islam and Amina Waddud’s Qur’an and Women spring immediately to mind.
I will post on the question of “political leadership” in the near future but I want to show the ambiguity on gender in the Qur’an.Continue reading Gender Bender II